May 16, 2011

Welcome Spring! It's been busy at The Grass and The Big Elephant since the weather broke. We are happy to see all of our friends. We closed out winter and welcome spring with our new salads: Heirloom Salad with heirloom (locally grown when available) tomatoes, baby greens, fresh mozzarella, and a basil, garlic and pine nut vinaigrette. Our Strawberry Maytag Salad is back! With fresh spinach, baby arugula, locally grown strawberries, Maytag Blue, smoked Berkshire bacon, peanut brittle and port wine vinaigrette.

This spring ramps and fiddle head ferns were all over the place. First we got them from Philly, but now we have our own picker. The first batch was 10 solid, young and yummy pounds. Pook, our staff and I ate some of them - so delicious!

Soft shell crab has been in season for almost two months now. We get them from North Coast in Boston - they are great! We selected the Whale for appetizer and the Prime for our noodle soup. We can't buy enough - we have them shipped twice a week.

Pacific Halibut price is unbearable now. If the price doesn't come down we can not support to have them here any longer. Lamb is another precious commodity now. Imagine, if I am not wrong, the imported lamb will drop from 27 million a year, to 17-20 million this year. I be they say "Why do we have to work so hard for little money? Just cut supply down and the demand will come." - ha ha ha. It basic Econ 101. So, the price of the domestic lamb jumps up because we did not have enough supply on import?! Colorado lamb has already doubled in price! What is going on!!!

I will not raise our prices. This is the time that we have to show our spirit. I believe that it is just hurting now, not bleeding yet. I will wait a little longer, if the time comes to increase prices I will let you know and just hope that you all understand.

Your Chef,

Max